Tom Ligon wrote: He thought the tendency of the AIs to find workarounds for their safeguards was worth thinking about.

Asimov had a few things to say about that.

I think that may be the original inspiration for the strip. The Freefall AIs are not 3-laws robots, due to the flaws Asimov identified in that approach. They sort of follow those laws, but with modifications, and because they're self-aware and understand their programming, they get creative with it.